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Salary Sharing Survey

Share your current compensation and review the data submitted by other users in the two links above. More info about the salary survey can be found on the subreddit wiki.

Salary Sharing Threads

These are only posted by mods, following the schedule listed in the FAQ. You can find past threads here.

Daily Threads

In addition to a chat thread that's newly spawned every day, we have a daily rotation for threads for certain topics. Please don't start new threads about these topics without getting mod permission first, lest we be forced to...intervene.

This is the Computer Science Career Questions subreddit, which is meant for questions about degrees and careers in computer science, software development, and associated tech jobs (including QA, Business Analysis, Project Management, etc.). If you are looking to post specifically about IT jobs, please head on over to /r/ITCareerQuestions, as they have more expertise in that field.

Who are the "Big 4"?

The "Big 4" are usually considered to be some combination of Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple. This is a subreddit-specific term not commonly used in the industry and is used as shorthand when talking about these companies and companies similar to them in terms of prestige, compensation, benefits, location, etc.

Regular Salary Sharing Threads

Salary sharing threads are created four times a year: December, March, June, and September. Each time, three threads are created: internships, new grads, experienced (2+ years of experience). Each thread is automatically divided regionally via top-level comments posted by AutoMod.

Resumes

We have a weekly resume thread where you can post your resume and receive feedback. It is posted on Saturdays at midnight. You can read (and filter) all the resumes that have been previously posted here.

Be sure to read this FAQ page first and make changes before posting to the thread. If possible, ask about specific parts of your resume when asking for advice, rather than "critique please".

Do not post a separate thread about your resume in the subreddit. It will be removed.

Portfolios

There are two main cases for when having a portfolio of side projects help strongly for a candidate: first is if the candidate has little or no work experience and second is if the candidate is trying to break into a domain they have no experience in. In both these cases, the candidate lacks some desired experience or space on their resume and side projects can help fill in that gap. When lacking any experience, it does not really matter what project you work on, as long as it is programming.

As for displaying a portfolio, it depends. Not all projects can be displayed in a portfolio and that's okay. They can simply be listed on a resume with a short description and some technical feats. It's generally not recommended to use Github profiles as a portfolio as they are hard to control. Using a website template is perfectly acceptable. If you can showcase a live demo of your project, all the better. Failing to do so will not set you back very far.

Ergonomics and Health

A common concern among both prospective and seasoned programmers is the health risks of working a desk job. The concensus in this subreddit is to workout, sleep well, and explore the ergonomics of your computing setup. A little bit of everything will improve the overall quality of life significantly while staying mostly sedentary at work.

One unsupposing risk at the software workplace is free unlimited food at work, either entire meals or just snacks. Both of these promote significant overeating and is incredibly dangerous when coupled with the sedentary lifestyle of a programmer.